Infidelity Articles By Katie Lersch

By: Katie Lersch: I sometimes hear from people who feel as if they have dodged a serious threat to their marriage. They have ended the affair and they have worked very hard to strengthen their marriage. And things appear to be going well. However, try as they might, they just can’t stop experiencing very troublesome feelings for the other person.

I might hear a comment like: “I made the huge mistake of cheating on my spouse last year. My husband found out about it from the other man. They go to the same gym. And the other man really likes my husband as a person. He felt incredibly guilty and said he couldn’t live with himself unless he came clean and told the truth. My husband immediately confronted me and I admitted to everything. I don’t want to jeopardize my family. We have two children and although I don’t think that my husband would fight me for custody, I just don’t want to take any chances and I know that my children are better off with their parents together. So, I told my husband that I would end the affair and I did. My husband very willingly went to counseling and things are slowly improving. I feel that in many ways, our marriage is being strengthened by this and I’m quite grateful that this is the case. I feel like we are making progress and I am so grateful to have the type of spouse who is not going to throw our marriage away because I was so stupid. So I have a lot of things to be grateful for and there are a lot of positive things to look forward to. You would think that everything would be moving along and that I wouldn’t have too much to worry about, but you’d be wrong. My problem is that I can not stop thinking about the other man. I still love him. I honestly do. I can’t stop thinking about him. He’s really a stand up guy. Not many people would confess to the husband just because it was the right thing to do. He knew that he would lose me and yet he still did the right thing. He’s a good person and I feel very drawn to him. I don’t think that I will ever stop loving him. And part of me feels that this is never going to be fair to my husband. What can I do?”

Why I Think It’s Too Soon To Make These Types Of Calls: I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but it’s way too soon to be declaring that you won’t ever stop loving this guy. The emotions are still running too high and the feelings are still too fresh. Not only that, but not enough time has passed in order to completely return the loving feelings to your marriage. It’s for these reasons and many more that I think that it would be a potential mistake to throw away a marriage which is recovering quite well just because of something that you are theorizing might happen.

Instead, consider giving this whole process a change to be complete. This process can take a good while. I am not telling you that you don’t still feel love for this other man because you absolutely might. But what I am telling you if that you do have a choice as to how you react to these feelings. You can choose to feel the feelings but to move on with your family anyway, or you can choose to act on these feelings and jeopardize your family all over again.

Why Jeopardize Your Family Again By Not Giving This Enough Time?: I will admit that I am not very objective about this because I see things from the side of the faithful spouse, as this was my reality in my own life. But I also know from my own experience and from the stories I hear from other people that your marriage can completely recover and improve to the point where you shudder to think that you ever jeopardized this now happy and fulfilling relationship. I believe that it is absolutely possible to fall in love with your spouse again and to realize that the feelings of love that you thought you had are nothing but a mirage brought on by the excitement and the novelty of the affair.

I am just suggesting that you consider continuing to move forward. By your own admission, things are going well with your marriage and you are very fortunate to have the resources and the willing spouse that is going to allow for this to happen. Why jeopardize this by dwelling (or acting) on perceived feelings that may fade in a very short amount of time? I know that this is probably a painful and confusing time, but I would encourage you to stay the course with your husband and your family. You may find that in the very distant future, the feelings are a memory just the affair is.

I firmly believe that feelings for the other person often do fade or prove to never have been there are all.  It’s also my opinion that it’s easier to tell yourself the feelings were real than to own up to the size of the mistake.  I don’t mean to be insensitive.  I know that an affair hurts every one.  But I also know that healing is possible.  If you’d like to read more about healing, please visit my blog at http://surviving-the-affair.com

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